News

(December 5, 2018) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced plans to explore overhauling emissions regulations for heavy-duty trucks and engines, aiming for greater simplicity of emissions regulations and national uniformity of such regs, said EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler.

Specifics about the program, dubbed the Cleaner Trucks Initiative, were sparse, but EPA says it intends to pursue a rulemaking to update regulations surrounding emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (NOx). The rule will call for further reduction of NOx emissions, EPA said.

Establishing national uniformity is meant resolve the issue of outlier states like California, who’ve instituted much more stringent emissions regulations of heavy-duty trucks (with its in-use diesel regs) than EPA has.

Wheeler announced the Cleaner Trucks Initiative saying EPA intends to “take a comprehensive review of existing requirements to root out inefficiencies,” while still “[ensuring] heavy-duty trucks are clean and remain a competitive way to transport goods.”